The Problem of Doing Good in a World That Isn't: Reflections on the Ethical Challenges Facing INGOs

Abstract

One great virtue of bringing together moral theorists and representatives from international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in a project like this one is that each group can potentially learn from engagement with the other. Moral theorists are trained to think carefully about the ways in which moral claims can be advanced and defended, to distinguish good arguments from bad ones, to clarify terms, to identify presuppositions, to examine the relationships between various elements in a moral position, to expose contradictions and inconsistencies, and to present accounts of moral views that are coherent. So people working in INGOs might gain by engaging with the kinds of abstract and systematic thinking that are the theorist's stock in trade. This could help those in INGOs to reflect more deeply about the underlying moral principles that they want to guide their actions and about whether the courses their organizations pursue really live up to their own principles. Moral theorists have much to gain as well by engaging with people from INGOs. In contrast to organizations like corporations and political parties for whom ethical considerations normally function only as constraints on the pursuit of the organization's primary goals (if ethical considerations play any role at all), INGOs like the ones connected to this project have ethical concerns as their primary goals. Whatever the specific formulation of their mission – social justice, human rights, and so on – their raison d'etre is the promotion of some moral good.